I never encountered Dr. Seuss during my childhood in Germany (and I also do have to wonder whether Dr. Seuss' delightfully fun and often song like poetry would work all that well in translation, and actually in any type of translation). But I do indeed vividly and with very fond nostalgia recall repeatedly and joyfully using his, using Dr. Seuss' 1963 board book Hop on Pop (which I had found in the school library) in 1976, in grade four, to practice English language prepositions and basic present and past tense verb forms (after having immigrated to Canada from Germany with my family) and indeed finding Hop on Pop a lot more fun, a lot more engaging and above all also a lot more prepositions and basic English grammar retaining than the bone dry and tedious work sheets that my homeroom teacher kept shoving at me (ha, ha, and notice the propositional phrase at me) and how Mrs. Hopkins was both annoyed with and aghast at me preferring Dr. Seuss and Hop on Pop to her boring grammar worksheets, as according to both my teacher (and unfortunately also according to my parents), a ten year old should not be reading ANY board books, period (neither for pleasure nor for learning purposes). But well, I say absolute and total utter BS to and for that kind of an attitude, to and for board books supposedly only ever being suitable and useable for younger readers (toddlers), and indeed, when I was teaching ESL classes for adults at the college/university level (about a decade ago), Hop on Pop in particular was really and massively popular with my ALL of my students, we had loads and loads of fun with the book and that the chanting of the entire class reciting Hop on Pop together really did help my students to retain the prepositions Dr. Seuss textually features (up, on, in, off, after) and that following a preposition, one needs to use an object and not a subject pronoun (him, her, me instead of he, she, I). And while Hop on Pop might not present an actual plot with a beginning, a middle and an end, Dr. Seuss poetically celebrating with Hop on Pop word sounds, basic prepositions and verb forms and tenses, this is fun, a delightful, a totally wonderful and creative, marvellous language learning tool, and most definitely shiningly and glowingly five stars.
And just to say to and for the IGNORAMUSES who have over the years repeatedly tried to get Hop on Pop censored and banned, removed from school and public library shelves because it supposedly encourages violence against fathers I really must ask them they are functionally or deliberately illiterate. For honestly, Dr. Seuss makes it textually very clear that hopping on Pop is NOT acceptable behaviour (and even in grade four, with my very limited English language skills, I immediately knew that Hop on Pop does not promote and encourage children being violent towards their fathers but very clearly points out that jumping, that hopping on one's father is not condoned, is unacceptable behaviour). I mean, it is frankly and sadly totally ridiculous and laughable that in 2014, some obviously unhinged and braindead Torontonians not only wanted Hop on Pop removed from the Toronto Public Library but also were demanding that the TPL write an apology to ALL Toronto fathers (and while the challenge was unsuccessful, it should also and obviously never have even been considered and taken seriously in the first place, as the book banners right from square one so to speak admitted that they had NOT read Hop on Pop and wanted the book banned and censored just because of the book title).